Protectors of Emerald City

to die!

Following their spectacular escape from the SS Bakron, our heroes found themselves stranded in space. R2 and D2 further introduced themselves, discussing their roles in research and development. While they were the original designers of the Behemoth, they couldn’t recall anything that could be used to destroy it.

Soon the Protectors saw a speck of a spaceship in the distance. As it came closer, they realized it was the Hive, come to rescue them. Soon they were all aboard, and reunited with their Plib friends.

However, the Plibs had some grave news. They had intercepted communications revealing that the Behemoth was headed to Earth. The Behemoth is a ship several times larger than Emerald City that specializes in harvesting adamantite. In approximately a week, it would arrive near Earth and start harvesting. Our heroes put 2 and 2 together with Nek’ilash gloating about Emerald City’s days being numbered to realize the ship would likely be targeting their home.

Additionally, R2 and D2 realized that it was probably very bad that the Bakron still had its research notes about Doctor Tau’s gloves. They might be able to use them to miniaturize their portal systems.

There was a significant amount of debate between R2 and D2, the Plibs, and the Protectors over our heroes’ next steps, given this new knowledge. In the end they decided to go back and capture the Bakron, Dimitri and Olga would destroy the research wing, while the Protectors went to the bridge to commandeer the ship. After incapacitating and capturing Nek’ilash, they would release the ship crew on a deserted but habitable planet, with the intention to let the Borgians know where they were dropped off. The Bakron would then be turned over to the Plibs. Hopefully capturing Nek’ilash would give them some sort of edge against the Behemoth.

Our heroes infiltrated the ship, yada yada, fast forward and they’re in the bridge, completely invisible and undetectable to any reasonable senses thanks to a combination of an invention from Tau and a ritual from Witch. At the helm was Nek’ilash, whose platform was encased in some kind of force-field bubble. Luckily our heroes spotted a large switch next to the platform which read “NEKILASHONLY” on one side and “MEH.” on the other side. Our heroes discretely flipped the switch to MEH, so that the force field would allow them through.

Nek’ilash appeared to be dictating one of his star logs. “Today was a good day…” he began, when K12 suddenly jumped out of the invisibility behind him, holding an icicle to Nek’ilash’s throat. “To die!” K12 finished. “Try anything and you’re dead, buddy,” said K12. “I’m not your buddy, pal. Who are you anyways?” asked Nek’ilash. “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” replied K12. “We’re taking over the ship.” “And how do you think you’re going to accomplish that?” asked Nek’ilash. “Wait, how were we going to accomplish that?” K12 asked himself.

But that thought was interrupted by what seemed to be a large explosion. When our heroes recovered their senses, they saw that Nek’ilash had suddenly transformed into a giant Kraken. The mass increase from the transformation had blasted everyone back, including several of the crocodillian ship crew who were knocked unconscious. Everyone rolled for initiative.

Nek’ilash’s tentacles were deadly, incapacitating either K12 or Witch (the GM can’t remember) in one squeeze! They were quickly brought back to fighting condition by Hoenheim’s healing ability. First our heroes dispatched the remaining conscious crocodillian Allaurons. Then they attacked Nek’ilash repeatedly until he was incapacitated. The Protectors then locked down the bridge.

With Nek’ilash captured, the rest of the ship’s crew was dropped off on a nearby planet. The Bakron was renamed to the Bit’ron, and handed over to the control of the Plebian Liberation Front.

What comes next for our heroes? Will they successfully convince Nek’thulan to spare Emerald City in exchange for the life of his son? Or will they find a way to destroy the Behemoth altogether? And what kind of starship captain begins his log with “Today was a good day” anyways? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Let's go! Wait, where are we again?

In this episode of Protectors of Emerald City, our heroes had been captured by Nek’ilash, K12’s nemesis, and were being held abord the S.S. Bakron. K12, Hoenheim, Witch, and Doctor Tau were all in forcefield-laden cages (the same that had held K12 in We Allauroned Alot Today). Hoenheim tried to grow a carbon pole to break open his cage, but it wasn’t able to exert enough force. Doctor Tau noticed a large red button on the wall, but it was too far out of reach for our heroes. Witch used all the power she could muster to use her morph ability to extend her arm to press the button, and was successful!

When Witch did this, the room fell into darkness. K12 lit the room with a flame, which allowed our heroes to see the force fields on their cages were disabled. Hoenheim broke everyone out of their cages, except for K12 who was attempting to break out of his own cage by freezing the metal bars to make them brittle. After a minute or so, K12 was successful and joined the others.

Our heroes wanted to escape the SS Bakron, to be sure, but first they needed to recover their belongings. Most importantly, Doctor Tau was missing his gloves, and did not want to leave them in the hands of the Borgians.

The Protectors decided to infiltrate the security room to find out where the gloves were, and to create further distraction from their whereabouts. On the way they beat up some humanoid robots, and Tau got his hands on a phaser. Inside the security room was a very evil looking Gorilla. Like, don’t worry about beating him up because he’s obviously up to no good. The fight with this gorilla (who was likely a Borgian anyways, I mean, look at how evil his face is) was concluded when Witch took control of him with her magic.

On the security room monitors, our heroes could see that Nek’ilash was in charge of the ship and located in the Bridge. The Gorilla told our heroes that Tau’s gloves were being kept in the science wing. Witch also went to the adjacent room (with all the breakers and ethernet-looking cables) and flipped off a bunch of switches, giving the attendant in that room quite a fright and turning off power in large sections of the ship.

The Gorilla led our heroes to the science wing. On the way, they encountered another squad of humanoid robots, being led by a large lizard-like creature (also presumably a Borgian, with such an evil-looking face, despite having no eyes). The lizard-like creature seemed to immediately know that the Gorilla was being influenced. Doctor Tau was able to discern the cooling vents on these robots which would allow our heroes to shoot at their battery packs, leading to explosion. Over several rounds of combat our heroes defeated this squadron, while the Gorilla being controlled by Witch sat in a corner and ate a banana, having not been given instructions. He didn’t share, because he’s so evil.

When our heroes reached the science wing, Witch instructed the Gorilla to enter the wing, and try to retrieve Tau’s gloves without any trouble. If he couldn’t do this, he was to return to our heroes as soon as possible. The Gorilla entered the room, and spotted a fellow Gorilla and Lizard-thing on the other side of the wing. The lizard-thing was immediately alerted to the controlled Gorilla’s presence, and began approaching it. The Gorilla saw this and retreated. And then we rolled for initiative.

Combat began with Witch’s controlled Gorilla running up to the enemy Lizard-thing, and immediately smacking the Lizard-thing’s head clear off of its body. You really don’t want to get hit by one of these Gorillas when they roll a 20. During combat, Tau put on his gloves to the protests of one of the human (but presumably Allauron) scientists, whom Tau knocked out with a smack to the head from one of the gloves. After some more combat rounds the enemy Gorilla was also subdued.

The other two scientists who had been in the room asked our heroes if they were here to rescue them. They were Plebians, and introduced themselves as R2 and D2. Our heroes explained that they were escaping themselves, but agreed to bring R2 and D2 along. D2 told our heroes that there was a ship in the engineering bay that might be used to escape. Our heroes also considered commandeering the Bakron by taking over the bridge. In the end, they decided to escape (after retrieving the rest of their belongings from a nearby closet).

Miraculously, our heroes reached the engineering bay without incident, and it appeared that nobody was inside. They entered and saw a small vessel in the middle of the room. Tau approached the vessel, and soon the doors behind them closed and alarms began going off in the room. In the distance, a loud speaker was announcing that intruders were in the engineering bay, and to go there at once. Time was ticking.

Tau figured out how to get inside the vessel, and the rest of our heroes (and R2 and D2) followed. Tau attempted to start the vessel, but nothing happened. R2 and D2 and Doctor Tau inspected the ship and quickly found that the battery pack had not been inserted and was plugged in to a nearby charging station. Witch got the Gorilla to insert the battery pack, and our heroes re-entered the vessel, sealing themselves inside.

At this point, enemies began pouring into the room (mostly robots, but also a couple Gorillas and Lizard-things, which seem to be pretty standard Bakron security). Our heroes realized they had no way to open the shutter on the wall that would lead outside the ship! But Tau saved the day, by super-charging his portal glove to open a portal through the wall of the ship large enough to steer the vessel through. When he did so, most of the enemies in the room flew out into space, except for the Gorilla being controlled by Witch who was instructed to hold on to something. Our heroes piloted the vessel out, and escaped the Bakron.

“… so guys, where are we?” asked K12, looking out at an unfamiliar sky.

With our heroes having escaped the Bakron, what is in store for them next? What did Nek’ilash mean when he said it would be “too late” for Emerald City? What’s the story with R2 and D2? Where are our heroes? And how will they know what to do without the guidance of Jean Placard? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Where am I? I can't remember...

It’s been about 3 months since this session took place, so this is gonna be short.

Our heroes were at home doing stuff, and each of them was attacked and abducted by something that seemed tailor-made for them. Witch was led into a room with magical books that knocked her out with sleeping gas. Hoenheim and K12 ran into a falcon trainer out in a field who captured them somehow. And Tau was attacked in his lab by someone with an EMP which disabled his gloves.

Our heroes were brought on board the S.S. Bakron and confined to cells like the one in which K12 was originally found. The ship is under the command of Nek’ilash, the Allauron who doomed K12 to become a recon. Nek’ilash spent a fair amount of time gloating over the Protectors’ capture, revealing that it would soon be “too late” for Emerald City, now that the Protectors are out of the picture.

What will happen now? Will the Protectors be able to free themselves? What is in store for Emerald City? How many Hero Points does everyone have? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Decompose yourself for this one

Earthquakes were taking place periodically throughout the city. Doctor τ and “R” got in touch and began discussing them. The vibrations had strange waveforms, and they seemed to have originated from a graveyard and a number of garbage dumps, which do not lie on fault lines.

Our heroes investigated, apart from Hoenheim who was intent on finishing the video game Last Dream IV. They went to the last garbage dump that hadn’t been hit by a quake, and when the quake hit they dug deep down. They soon found a giant worm was burrowing throughout the dump. Just as they came up with a plan of attack, the worm left.

But our heroes were hot on its trail, predicting it would hit a nearby graveyard next. They set up for the attack, digging a deep trench along the main rode that intersects the graveyard. When the worm arrived, they attacked!

K12 soon found himself in a sticky situation, devoured by the beast! Witch mind controlled it, but was unable to counter the involuntary digestive impulses of the giant worm. However, K12 took some rock that had been consumed by the creature, and shaped it into a sharp disc sword. With this, he sliced the creature in two, sealing its demise. He celebrated by gathering some of the worm’s internals to use in making Soushma later on.

With the creature and much of this graveyard destroyed, what is in store for our heroes next? Will Humans First use the destruction of another graveyard as fuel to fan the anti-hero flames? What caused this giant worm to come to existence in the first place? Will Hoenheim finally beat that game and rejoin our heroes? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Time to unearth some deep-rooted memories

With the Molarian Moss gathered, our heroes left “Sy” to do his science and returned home.

About a month later, Sy contacted Doctor τ, informing him that he thinks he has a way to get K12’s memories and powers back. After gathering together, everyone was beamed up onto the Hive. Sy showed everyone a set of chairs with hairdryer-looking devices connected to a glowing green hub, apparently powered by adamantite. Our heroes would be hooked up to the device, and given a concoction with the Molarian Moss meant to enable their consciousnesses to introspect into minds. Along with the strange-looking device, it would allow the other heroes to enter K12’s mind. The moss would only work for a few hours.

Sy warned our heroes that whatever was locking down K12 may protect itself against them. If they were killed in K12’s mind, they would be braindead, something Hoenheim could not help with. Tau had some objections about experimenting on humans, but Sy assured him that “this sort of thing” has been done before, and that the procedure itself shouldn’t be dangerous. It was just whatever lurks in K12’s mind that they should worry about.

Since there were only three chairs, Hoenheim sat this one out, instead teaching his crow Jobe how to play checkers. Skree skree.

And so Witch, Tau, and K12 were hooked up to this device, and ingested a bitter purple liquid. Soon they fell unconscious. When they woke up, they found themselves lying on a web of black roots. Looking up, they found they were in a city with a strange, alien architecture. It felt familiar to K12. All of the buildings were overgrown with these black root-like vines, or vine-like roots. They all seemed to originate from one direction, where the root of this evil would lie.

As our heroes approached the source, they saw what appeared to be an enormous tree with purple leaves in the distance. As they came closer, they realized this was not a tree, but rather a tall building, overgrown with the same roots as the rest of the city.

Our heroes ventured to the top of the tree. Tau inspected the purple leaves, and found that, unlike normal leaves, they had no veins. He was unable to find a way in through the matting of roots.

Tau and K12 returned to the base of the building and attempted to get in through the overgrown doors. However, when they did so, they heard a roar off in the distance. Witch, who was flying around, led our heroes to the source of the sound, but they could not find anything suspicious. They returned to the tower/tree, and again tried to get into the building.

This time, they pulled away a web of roots. However, when they successfully made an opening, more roots quickly grew over it, fully covering the door. Another roar was heard, this time from the top of the building. Looking up, it appeared that branches were falling on our heroes. But as they grew closer, our heroes knew those were no branches.

A large humanoid golem made of the same black roots as webbed the terrain fell to the ground. It was as tall as three people, and accompanied by five human-sized golems. The large guardian had a bright purple stone as an eye, while the smaller golems sprouted small purple leaves, the same as the tree above. Everyone rolled for initiative.

Our heroes first dispatched of the smaller golems, destroying them with relative ease. This enraged the guardian, who continued to attack our heroes. They landed many successful blows on the guardian, but after each blow the eye of the guardian would glow, and the destroyed roots regrew. “The eye!” exclaimed K12. “It’s the root of his power, we must destroy it!”

Our heroes then focused on the eye of the guardian, and in a few more combat rounds destroyed it. When the eye shattered, the guardian blew away into fine black dust, and the roots covering everything began to do the same.

Soon, our heroes found themselves back in their own bodies, in the real world. K12 began to regain his memories. Back on Allaur, he was a well-known chef named Kal’Tolor who ran a fine dining restaurant. He, like all other Plebians, does not have a family, and grew up in a nursery. Having family is a luxury reserved for Borgians. He grew up with a friend and rival named Kul’Nathan, who also became a chef. K12 began to wonder whether Kul’Nathan and the chefs and sous-chefs that worked at his restaurant are alright.

One day Nek’ilash, son of Nek’thulan, vice-regent of war, came to K12’s restaurant. He ordered a fungi-based dish, and was then displeased that it was made of fungi. K12 suspected that Nek’ilash did not understand the name of the dish, and told him as much when Nek’ilash complained. Out of petty anger, Nek’ilash made sure that K12 was recruited as a recon. As K12 was loaded onto the S.S. Bakron for his preparation, Nek’ilash gloated in K12’s face about how this was all his doing.

K12 also remembered visiting a planet with black, vine-like trees like the ones seen in K12’s mind. That was where his memories and powers were locked. Sy was unsure of what the plants are, but knew a biologist who might help them. She’s a Borgian who goes by the name of Katerina, and ventures around the universe researching life forms. Sy could find Katerina’s whereabouts if they want.

What’s in store for our heroes next time? Will K12 get revenge on Nek’ilash for conscripting him as a recon? Now that the creature is destroyed, will all of K12’s memories and powers return? And what’s the deal with Sy and this Katerina anyways? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

It's barrels of fungi!

With 50 minutes until session, the GM wrote another quick summary.

Our heroes were thanked by Thomas Arkmann and his secretaries at city hall for saving TAISAR from Humans First. Punk secretary had with a red streak in her hair, wearing a navy blue sailor top and skirt along with red gloves and a red neck tie. Glasses secretary wore glasses, with done-up brown hair, wearing a pencil skirt and tights, and holding a clipboard and pen. Pink secretary had curly pink locks, and was wearing a white sweet lolita dress with pink lacing and a maching parasol.

K12 asked the secretaries for their contact information and was promptly smacked upside the head by Hoenheim. Glasses secretary quickly scribbled a number on a piece of paper and handed it to K12, stating it was the main contact line for Thomas Arkmann’s office.

Arkmann asked our heroes if they wanted anything in return for their deeds. Hoenheim asked for a protective super-shield. Arkmann said they were actually working on something like that at TAISAR, and that he would give Hoenheim the working prototype once it is complete.

Getting ready to go, our heroes considered what happened the last time they all left and asked Doctor Tau to stay behind to keep an eye on Earth as the rest of the heroes went in search of Molarian moss to unlock K12’s powers and memories. Tau was like “no” and arranged for Shadow to keep tabs on what’s going on with the city and contact them by neutrinos if something came up.

When they reached Gaiana, our heroes got a description of the moss from Sy, and promptly set down on the planet to search for it. Tau stayed on the ship. The planet was alive, moss, mushrooms, fungi, yadayada. Witch gathered a bunch of glowing purple mushrooms along the way.

Buzzing insects began to swarm and bite at our heroes. Then each of Hoenheim, K12, and Witch saw the others’ eyes turn purple and start to attack them. It was an illusion. Gasp. Hoenheim dug himself into the ground and figured out there was some weird spore stuff inside him with his alchemical sensing abilities, and with much difficulty removed it from his body.

Hoenheim tried to explain what was going on to Witch, who was telepathically communicating with him, but Witch just wouldn’t believe that this was an illusion. K12 got knocked out somehow, Hoenheim removed the spores from K12, Witch eventually decided “OK I guess Hoenheim isn’t lying” and Hoenheim removed the spores from her too.

Our heroes were soon contacted by Sy, who said similar things were happening to Dimitri and Olga, who were also on the planet in search of the moss. Our heroes suggested to Sy that he should bring Olga and Dimitri back on the ship, so that Hoenheim could cure them.

Then our heroes went back on the ship, and Hoenheim cured Olga and Dimitri.

With a shiny set of spacesuits to protect them, our heroes went back down to Gaiana’s surface. Eventually they came to a very dry area with vines all over the surface. The vines attacked and grabbed on to Witch. K12 decided the vines would be no match for fire, and launched a fire attack. All the vines caught on fire very rapidly, including the ones holding Witch, who began to take fire damage. Hoenheim freed Witch from the vines, as a strange gooey liquid began seeping out through the ground.

K12 realized that he had the perfect remedy to a bunch of fire – water! So he created a bunch of water and doused the area around Witch and Hoenheim. This caused the liquid seeping out through the ground to splash up, and Hoenheim and Witch took acid damage. This just wasn’t K12’s day.

But with Witch free, everyone got out of there. Fire and acid engulfed the area they left so it could be born anew. With damaged spacesuits, our heroes returned to the ship to get a new set.

This time, they decided to ask Sy a bit more about the planet, where they would find the moss, and what dangers to expect. Sy explained that he didn’t know about the illusory spores, but that the ground acid should be the most dangerous thing on the planet. He didn’t think our heroes would set it on fire. He also explained that the moss is found in damp environments, and is likely to grow underneath some of the tall tree-like fungi that are spread throughout the planet. He also explained that to gather the moss, they should cut out the root system with it, or it would promptly die. This wouldn’t be enough damage to the surface to trigger acidic death.

Our heroes went back down to Gaiana’s surface, and after some searching of humid areas eventually found the moss. They gathered it, and returned to the ship victorious.

And so, our heroes had found the elusive Molarian moss. Would this moss really help in unlocking K12’s powers and memories? What does K12’s past have in store? Would his luck finally improve? And what will Witch do with those glowing mushrooms? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

This is what happens when we take a day off

K12 was curious about what Sy had said earlier about unlocking his powers and memories, so he went over and asked. “Yeah, I think I can probably definitely get your Allauron powers back. There’s this moss – Molarian Moss – that grows on the planet Gaiana that I think will help. Gaiana’s super cool, it’s basically alive! It’s completely covered with moss and mushrooms and fungi and other kinds of—”

“But I want to go to Gaiana. Can we like, drop you off or something?” asked K12. The rest of the team felt that it would probably be a good idea to check in with the city before heading off to another planet. They decided to take a pit stop on Earth for a few days before heading out to Gaiana. The crew of the Hive was fine with this, as they had no pressing missions in the near future and could use the time for ship maintenance.

So Witch went to her shop, and the rest of our heroes hung out in Dr. Tau’s lab. K12 and Hoenheim were kind of hungry, so they order a pizza. Vegetarian, no onions, spicy peppers. Then Doctor Tau checks in with Alexis.

“Finally, where have you all been!?” exclaimed Alexis. “I’ve been trying to call you for hours!”

Alexis reminded our heroes about the group Humans First, which campaigns against superhumans. They argue that the city is worse off with the Protectors, and that the reason so many bad things come to the city is because we have them. They want to stop the use of Adamantite, regulate superhumans, and ban the use of superhuman abilities.

It seems that with the recent wave of anti-Protector sentiment following the Yomi incident, Humans First has become radical. Undoubtedly they want to put themselves in the spotlight to attract more followers.

The group had taken the entire TAISAR building hostage, demanding that they cease their research on Adamantite and hand over their entire stock of Adamantite to Humans First to be “destroyed”. An ominous shadowed figure appeared on several public television monitors stating these demands, and rambling about other changes that they would later be demanding of the city. They said the entire TAISAR building is rigged to explode. If any police or Protectors were detected snooping around, they would detonate the building. Thomas Arkman would have one day to give in to these demands.

Doctor Tau called up Shadow asking if she could trace the source of the transmission to the city television network. A little while later, she called back saying she wouldn’t be able to do it in the amount of time they had. The double-layer 4096-bit SHA-4 encrypted firewall was just too much. She would, however, be able to hack into the security camera network at TAISAR to give our heroes vision of what’s going on, as well as to loop the video feed if our heroes wanted to enter without detection.

Our heroes then spent an (understandably) unprecedented amount of time deciding what to do. They were unable to see anyone on the security feeds, but were unsure whether invisible foes were lurking about. Witch wanted to try to communicate telepathically with someone inside, but they were unsure how to tell whether the person would be a friend or invisible enemy. After much discussion and deliberation, our heroes set upon their task.

They reached the forest outside of TAISAR, and Witch began telepathically communicating with a random person inside the building. Witch pretended to be a reporter. The scientist was very confused, but told Witch how a voice on the PA system told everyone they need to stay in their offices and labs or the building would be detonated.

Eventually the Protectors told Shadow to start looping the video feed, and tunneled into the first basement floor of the building. Doctor Tau diffused the first bomb they found, and then showed Hoenheim how he could also diffuse this bomb using his alchemy. The rest of our heroes began evacuating the building through the tunnel, so as not to arouse suspicion of anyone who might be watching from outside the building. It turned out that Humans First had been doing everything remotely, apart from inconspicuously placing bombs throughout the building.

Soon our heroes had everyone evacuated, except for the top floor which held Thomas Arkmann’s offices. Our heroes were worried about what Arkmann might be doing with his Kawaii secretaries during the commotion. The office had been placed in lockdown.

Hoenheim attempted to transmute the blast door of the office, but found he was unable to do so. He couldn’t even identify the material the door was made out of! He attempted to find a weak point in the office, but the whole thing was surrounded by this impenetrable material. Nobody was responding from inside the office. Eventually our heroes left the building.

Soon after, Humans First figured out what our heroes had done. The silhouette on screens throughout the city began to rant, “Curse you, Protectors! We promise you, this will be the last time you thwart the will of the people! We’ll be back!”

Will our heroes be able to identify the perpetrators from Humans First? Will K12 regain his Allauron powers and memories? Will the Kawaii secretaries be safe? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Alright let's do this. Leeroyyy!...

In this episode, our heroes helped the Plebians rescue Recon 542 from the S.S. Bakron. Doctor Tau and Witch snuck up to the ship using a small one-man vessel. Witch boarded it, and found Recon 542, the switch room, and the mainframe while avoiding some serpent-like security guards. They came up with a plan to have Witch disable the Bakron’s power while Doctor Tau teleported 542 onto the one-man ship and Witch back to the Plib ship.

Notably, when Witch found a large port labeled “don’t stick viruses here” in the mainframe room, she chose not to stick viruses there (as she didn’t have any with her). She did however unplug a bunch of ethernet-looking cables.

Some of you might have thought you remembered Doctor Tau teleporting people from outer space back to Earth, but this didn’t really happen. Doctor Tau’s teleport lock on his home base is still limited by the range of his portal device.

What’s in store for our heroes next? Will Jobe finally join up with the team on a mission? Will Sy be able to unlock K12’s powers? Will we find out what the Allaurons’ plans are for Earth or where Hoenheim’s father is? Will next week’s synopsis be as short, summarized, and lacking hyperlinks as this one? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City.

Also: Wow, she's actually a bee.

Having emerged victorious, our heroes looted Yomi Izanami’s hideout. Witch began frantically scouring the rooms for signs of “Book”, while the rest of our heroes more calmly explored the lair.

Doctor Tau came upon a room with many crystals, gems, and inscriptions laid about. He was particularly intrigued with a circular table in the center of the room. It had seven gemstones equally spaced around the edges of the table, with an alchemy circle intricately inscribed in the table. In the center of the table there was a piece of Adamantite.

Tau was suspicious, and carefully inspected the stones to ensure that he indeed thought they were plain gemstones and that the crystal in the center was indeed Adamantite. He then photographed the scene and gathered the gemstones and crystal up to take back to his lab. K12 and/or Hoenheim might also have come into the room to look at the setup, but the GM can’t remember.

Meanwhile, Witch came upon a small library. Along the edges of the room were sets of bookshelves, but Witch’s eyes were immediately drawn to the pedestal in the center of the room, which held a black book emanating a dark aura. This was Yomi’s Book that Witch sought.

Despite her enthusiasm, Witch was wary of this book, which was bound shut with black leather straps. She tried to open Book with her telekinetic powers, but the book refused to open. She sought out a fire poker to open Book with, but that also failed. Eventually she decided to open Book with her hands.

On touching Book, the dark aura that surrounded it was sucked into Witch through her hands, and the black lace that held Book shut dematerialized. WItch eagerly opened Book, only to see that the inside was blank. She spent some time looking at the book, using her arcane knowledge to sense what was going on. Doing this, she realized that Book thirsted for her blood. So she cut herself and gave it some. On doing this, the blood soaked into the pages of Book, and red lettering appeared.

Witch was excited by this, but explored the rest of the room rather than reading all of Book right now. She found many books that covered topics she was already familiar with, but also several on lightning magic and necromancy that were unknown to her. She looted a number of tomes to bring back to her shop for reading.

And so our heroes returned home. Witch went to her shop and began reading, while the rest of our heroes went to Doctor Tau’s lab. Oh, and they also brought back Yomi to be kept in a holding cell, while a more suitable cell gets constructed in the Emerald City Superprison.

At his lab, Doctor Tau did some further investigation of the crystal and gemstones he gathered at Yomi’s hideout. He discovered that these were indeed regular gemstones, and adamantite. He put the adamantite away in the drawer with his other crystals.

Then Doctor Tau spent a few hours walking aimlessly around his lab. He knew there was something he was forgetting to do, but entirely forgot what it was. And so he twiddled his thumbs. Eventually Hoenheim came up to Tau and asked him how the radar monitoring was going, and whether he had spotted any Plibs. “Right. That.” replied Tau, returning to the monitoring equipment.

On returning to the monitor, Tau discovered that here was in fact a Plib radio signal moving around Emerald City. It wasn’t moving along road or sewer lines, implying it was likely flying overhead. Hoenheim and K12 went out to investigate the source.

With Tau navigating from the lab, they eventually reached a rooftop very close to the radio source. “Skree! Thank goodness I found you, skree skree” went a voice overhead. A crow came down and landed on Hoenheim’s shoulder.

“Xal’Thuran was able to set up a meeting with the Plibs skree” said the crow. “Who are you and why on earth should we trust you? How do we know Xal’Thuran sent you?” asked K12. “Skree… he told me to tell you ‘hello brother’”. “I’m not convinced,” replied K12. However, K12 and Hoenheim agreed that they should probably follow along with the crow anyways, wary for a trap.

The crow explained that they were to go to a certain field east of Emerald City in a day. A tracker on the crow would allow the Plibs to locate our heroes and beam them onto their ship in orbit around Earth.

[GM’s note: 15 minutes to session so the synopsis will have to speed up a bit]

The crow also took a liking to Hoenheim.

The next day our heroes and the crow went to the aforementioned field and waited to be beamed up. With a flash of light, they soon found themselves inside the spaceship in a room made of a steel-like metal. A man with black hair, thick prescription goggles, and a lab coat opened the door to the room. “Great, it worked! We weren’t quite sure if the beamer worked on this thing”. The goggle-clad individual introduced himself as Sy. “You should come meet the rest of the crew!”

Our group was introduced to the rest of the crew. Auntie Bee was in fact a bee, and spoke to our heroes with telepathy. Chio (short for Xi’Orath) was a tabby cat and also communicated telepathically. Olga “the Butcher” and Dimitri “the Hunter” were two recons placed in the Russian government who were rescued by the Plibs.

Sy showed our heroes this cool fluid he invented that, when sprayed on glass, makes it so it doesn’t get dirty! Tau was very excited about this, and the two agreed to have Tau distribute it on Earth in some way.

There was some amount of discussion about the situation of the Plibs and Allaurons in general, but the GM is fuzzy on the details. Auntie Bee did explain that the Plibs in general want to free the Plebians from the rule of the Borgs, but that their vessel’s job is currently to rescue individual Plebs from the Borgs. Oh, and there exist 1342 sentient species in the universe that the Allaurons are aware of.

The Plibs told our heroes they could help look for Hoenheim’s father, and Sy was quite excited to try to unlock K12’s powers and memories, but the Plibs told our heroes that they have a pressing mission on hand to rescue a recon. They would like our heroes’ help. Our heroes agreed to assist the Plibs on this mission.

What will Witch learn from Book when she returns? How will our heroes rescue the recon? Will Sy’s eternal window cleaner achieve international acclaim? Find out in a future episode of Protectors of Emerald City!

"Yep, it's definitely a rock."

Doctor Tau gathered a sample of rock from the crumbled pseudo-Witch, and brought it back to his lab to analyze. Meanwhile Witch went back to her shop, while Hoenheim and K12 did Hoenheim and K12 stuff. And of course, Hoenheim didn’t do it alone, whatever it was.

When she returned to her shop, Witch found it had been trashed, presumably by Yomi but potentially by disgruntled citizens of Emerald City. She began cleaning it up, and this took the remainder of the day. At the end of the day, Witch received a call from her cultist friend, who has a friend of a friend whose husband took off north of the city to join Yomi‘s cult. The friend wasn’t sure where.

Meanwhile, back at the lab, Doctor Tau was making slow progress. For the first few hours, all he could determine was that this was, indeed, a sample of rock. He called over Hoenheim to help, and together they made a breakthrough discovery, determining it came from Withering Peak, a mountain north of Emerald City.

And so, having corroborated the information gained by Witch and Tau, our heroes set off to Withering Peak.

At Withering Peak, Hoenheim picked up the trail of a cultist and scouted ahead. Once he determined the cultist hideout was just nearby, Witch took over, using her powers of concealment. She entered the clearing where the hideout was located, and saw a ring of cultists around a fire below a balcony where Yomi watched over them. The hideout itself was made of bones, and was built into the side of the mountain. Seeing this, Witch returned to the rest of the group.

Our heroes decided on a plan of attack. They would approach the hideout from further up on the mountain, and tunnel into the hideout from behind. They took some time to stealthily circle the mountain, and began tunneling in. Eventually they came to the ceiling of a room with three cultists below.

Breaking through the rock ceiling, our heroes got the jump on the cultists, and swiftly took them out. But lo and behold, another cultist soon came into the room to see what was causing all this noise. Spotting the Protectors, the cultist turned and ran, shouting for help. Doctor Tau was swift to place a portal bringing this cultist back into the room, and the cultist was unable to escape. But the alarm had been sounded; Soon more cultists came piling into the room, and Yomi discovered the intruders.

However, with their fortified position and superior ability, our heroes quickly dispatched of all the cultists who entered the room. Yomi too was taken down, while the GM was in too much of a feverish haze to remember the details. And so our heroes emerged victorious, and began to loot the hideout.

Will Witch finally “find book”? What other texts and tomes might she find? Will we finally get back to the Allauron plotline? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Must get book!

As Doctor Tau monitored the radio frequency band in his secret lab, the clouds above Emerald City began to darken. Our heroes were called by the Mayor to investigate the source of the darkening skies. Reports had been made of the dead coming to life and a strange hooded figure in the Emerald City Graveyard with an old-looking necromancy book—

“Book!” exclaimed Witch, rushing off to the graveyard.

The rest of our heroes followed, apart from Tau, who continued to monitor the airwaves. At the graveyard, zombies were indeed everywhere, and in the center was a hooded figure holding a tome with a strange glowing bubble of aura surrounding them. Witch immediately dove in, trying to snatch the volume, but was repelled away by the aura with significant force.

The necromancer threw back her hood and revealed herself to be Yomi Izanami. She vowed to show that the magic of House Izanami is far superior to House Lazura. “What the heck is House Lazura?” K12 thought to himself, before ‘remembering’ that Witch’s real last name is Lazura, and first name isn’t Witch.

A battle ensued. To make a long encounter short, Yomi made a giant lightning storm that hit everyone who was flying with considerable power, and also targeted our heroes directly with lightning bolts. The zombies on the ground swarmed and destroyed the platforms made by Hoenheim. Hoenheim was able to protect the unconscious bodies of K12 and Witch from the zombies by burying them, but in the end couldn’t do much against Yomi and her horde of zombies on his own, apart from hiding.

Hoenheim saw Yomi do something strange to Witch’s body, as though she was pulling something out of her. Then, the aura around Yomi contracted, Yomi disappeared, and the zombies all fell dead.

Hoenheim relayed to Tau what took place at the graveyard, and our heroes pondered whether Yomi would be gone for good now, or if they would have to do something about her. When Witch awoke, she answered this question.

“Must get book!”

What’s this book all about, anyways? And why is Yomi attacking our heroes? And why haven’t we heard about Yomi or Witch’s family before? What did Yomi do to Witch, anyways? And will the GM learn from his mistake on combat balance? Find out… well, right now actually.

Doctor Tau called up Shadow and asked her to dig up whatever she could about Yomi Izanami. Shadow said she’d get back to Tau in about a day. With the exhaustion from the combat in the graveyard, our heroes decided to reconvene tomorrow.

Witch went around asking people whether they had heard of Yomi Izanami, and where she might find her. She found out that Yomi had come to Emerald city about a month ago, and was gathering cultists, but isn’t looking any longer. One of her contacts said they would get back to her if they found anything relating to Yomi’s whereabouts.

The next day, K12 went to Wei Lin’s smoothie shop with Hoenheim. As he neared the store, he noticed the windows were shattered, and there was the sound of glass being swept coming from inside. K12 entered the store to see Wei Lin brandishing a broom, ready to defend herself. “Oh, is just you” she said to K12.

“What happened!?” K12 asked Wei Lin. Wei Lin told K12 and Hoenheim about how Witch came by and trashed her store. “She even call me old hag! I tell city that it not good idea to keep a witch around but do they listen to Wei Lin?”

K12 promised to look into the situation, and to have Witch pay for the damage done to the shop. As he left the shop, he called up Witch. Witch said she hadn’t been anywhere near the shop, but reminded K12 that it’s possible for witches and necromancers to change their appearance to look like someone else. Perhaps she was being impersonated by Yomi?

Doctor Tau heard back from Shadow. Apparently Yomi was involved in some kind of tournament in Europia, and was knocked out in the first round by one of Witch’s relatives. This whole stunt might be some kind of revenge.

Our heroes learned of a series of other petty crimes that were supposedly committed by Witch. Charles Lavalle reported that Witch came into Emerald Books and stole the entire Magic and Occult section. According to Francine Placard, Witch was spotted lighting the garbage pile at the city dump on fire, pouring toxic fumes into the surrounding area. The giant statue of an emerald in Emerald City Square was transformed into a giant statue of Witch. And TAISAR is filing a lawsuit against the city for “WITCH IS THEBEST” being engraved into the side of their building in giant letters.

Tau asked Shadow to be on the lookout for the location of someone that looks like Witch. Shadow soon called back with good news and bad news. The good news was that she found “Witch”. The bad news was that “Witch” was heading towards the Emerald City Superprison. Where Helga Jackson is. With three giant elemental creatures made of ice, fire, and lightning.

Our heroes rushed over as fast as they could, intercepting the villains at the bridge leading to the superprison. Witch disguised herself as an Inquisitor. A reasonably lengthy battle ensued, which revealed that the GM had not yet “learn from his mistake on combat balance”. However, our heroes eventually emerged victorious. With the final blow, pseudo-Witch crumbled into a pile of rocks, and the three elemental golems disintegrated.

Wait, a pile of rocks? Wasn’t that supposed to be Yomi? If those were Yomi’s creations, then how powerful must Yomi be?

Will our heroes find Yomi Izanami and steal The Book for Witch? Will we finally return to balanced combat? Will Witch ever seek help for her addiction to ancient literature? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Just trust me on this one

K12 was a little flustered at being hugged by this stranger, Xal’Thuran, and called “brother”. Xal asked K12 how it was that he came to be on Earth. “Did the Plibs bring you here?” K12 had no idea what the “Plibs” were, and said so to Xal. A look of fear came over Xal’Thuran’s face. “So then you must be a recon”.

At this point K12 came to a realization.

“Guys, we have to kill him.”

Our other heroes were taken aback by this statement, and asked K12 why they had to kill Xal’Thuran. K12 said “We just have to. Trust me on this one”. Xal’Thuran began to say something, when K12 attacked him. Some of our heroes aided K12 in attacking Xal, while others stood back to see what Xal would say.

Over the course of the first two combat rounds, Xal’Thuran was able to explain that K12 was put on Earth by the Allaurons as an unknowing spy, and was implanted with a monitoring device at the base of his neck. Hoenheim was able to use his alchemical sensing powers to confirm that there was some metal object embedded in K12’s spine at the base of his neck.

It became clearer to our heroes that it might be worth listening to Xal, who had not yet attacked and at this point had turned into a giant rock. At least until they removed whatever was inside K12. After some more combat they were able to subdue him. Then Xal’Thuran removed the device from K12.

Our heroes and Xal returned to Doctor Tau’s lab and waited for K12 to recover. Xal’Thuran was reluctant to say much without K12 conscious.

Once K12 regained consciousness, Xal’Thuran said a number of things that the GM remembers in no particular order.

On Allaura, the home planet of the Allaurons, society is divided into the “plebians” and the “borgians” (the working and ruling classes), referred to colloquially as the Pleebs and the Borgs. Plebians are conscripted for a number of tasks. Xal’Thuran was taken from his work as a “community beautification officer” to become a “recon”.

Xal explained that a recon is an Allauron disguised in some way to infiltrate human society, who is then brainwashed to forget that they are an Allauron. They are also implanted with monitoring equipment so the Borgs can see what they see and subtly (or not-so-subtly) influence their thoughts.

While Xal’Thuran was being prepared for recon, he was freed by a Plebian Liberation vessel headed by “Auntie Bee”. The Plebian Liberation Front, or “Plibs”, are a group that seek to liberate the Pleebs from the Borgs.

As Xal’Thuran was now essentially a deserter, the Plibs brought him down to Earth to live the rest of his life. Knowing now a bit about Earth, and empathizing with its animals who are repressed by Humans, Xal decided to find fitting creatures to bestow powers upon. This all happened a few months before K12 was found by Doctor Tau.

So why are the Allaurons interested in Earth and Humans at all? Allaurons are heavily dependent on Adamantite, and the supply on their planet is slowly running out. It is set to deplete within the next few centuries. Thus, they have begun searching for Adamantite throughout the universe.

Why remain secret from humans? The Allaurons are very intrigued by humans and the way that Adamantite is interacting with them. It is reminiscent of the early days of the development of the Allauron species. They don’t want to interfere with the natural course of human history, unless they must.

What do you mean, Adamantite interacting with humans? Is it sentient or something? Yes. Yes it is sentient. Adamantite is a hub for Adamantons, subatomic particles which the Adamantite consciousness is made of. All the effects of Adamantite are manifested through the actions of Adamantons. Allaurons gained their powers essentially by enslaving Adamantons.

When shown the Adamantite that came from the goo monster in A Sticky Situation, Xal’Thuran was intrigued. He explained that the Adamantite is angry. At what, Xal was not sure. Oh, and the multiple crystals that Tau left in his drawer somehow joined into one crystal while they were left there. Spooky.

When asked how he knew K12 was an Allauron, Xal’Thuran responded that he has a special ability to identify other Allaurons. It is rare among the Allaurons to be able to do this.

Xal’Thuran was asked whether he’s seen Hoenheim’s father, and shown a photo. Xal had never seen the man, but explained that the borgians sometimes kidnapped humans who are experts on Adamantite to assist them with their excavation and research projects.

Xal suggested that the Plibs may be able to help K12 regain some of his Allauron powers and memories. He wasn’t sure how to find the Plibs, but revealed that they operate space ships that communicate using radio frequencies with a certain kind of encryption, that makes it hard to find unless you know what you’re looking for. Now our heroes know what they’re looking for. The Plibs also may know something about the whereabouts of Hoenheim’s father.

Our heroes decide they should track down the Plibs in search of more information. Xal cannot return to the crocs, as he is sure the Borgs will be looking for him there. He instead will venture out to the East in search for species which are worthy of having powers bestowed upon them.

What is in store for our heroes next? Will they find the Plibs? Will they know where Hoenheim’s father is? Will K12 regain his memories? What horrors might Xal’Thuran unwittingly unleash on Emerald City? Will there be some huge war like in Lord of the Rings, but with the humans and all of Xal’Thuran’s followers against the Allaurons? Or will we have a filler episode involving zombies? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

What did he ever do to Goo?

Hoenheim and K12 kept Doctor Tau company as he followed Helga’s instructions to create the meat plants, while Witch tended to her shop. At some point, K12 turned around and realized that there was nobody in Helga’s cell. “Where’d she go!?!?” he asked Tau and Hoenheim frantically. Hoenheim let this go on for a little while before revealing that Helga was still in her cell, and had just gone invisible. “You’re no fun…” she complained, decloaking herself.

Doctor Tau had gotten the meat plants ready to be left to grow, when he received a call from the mayor. Jean insisted that the Protectors needed to hurry to his office as quickly as possible, as there was something important he needed to brief them on. Tau was very skeptical, so K12 stayed behind to keep a somewhat-watchful eye on Helga.

When they reached the mayor’s office, Placard breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness you’re here,” he began. “This fly has been driving me crazy! You have to kill it”. The frustrated Tau quickly dispatched the fly with a minute plasma portal. “There, happy?”

“Yes,” replied Placard. “Now to the actual important business. There appears to be a giant monster attacking the downtown waste management center. You must save them”. Our heroes were surprised that there was actually something maybe important to do. Tau opened a portal directly to Francine’s office, and a grey goo began seeping in through the portal. The panicked Tau quickly closed the portal, and opened a new one to send the goo back where it came from. “Well… I guess he’s not kidding.”

Our heroes approached the waste management center (along with Witch and K12) as Francine was fleeing the scene. They first peered into the chemical treatment room from the skylight. The large pool-like vat in the center of the room was empty. Descending into the room, they followed a trail of goo and destruction into the office hall, and to the garbage truck bay, where they saw a large blob devouring some trucks.

Hoenheim approached the blob. In a Michaelangelo-esque scene, the blob extended a thin filament, reaching out to Hoenheim, who reached out and touched it. At Hoenheim’s touch, a green spot appeared, which grew to cover the entire filament, and then the entire blob. The blob now had Hoenheim’s powers.

When K12 approached the blob, the response was a little different. The blob attacked K12. In response, Hoenheim encased K12 in a protective bubble of concrete. The blob began to leave, dissolving its way through the wall.

Removing the concrete bubble from K12, our heroes decided they would have to destroy the blob. A fairly lengthy battle ensued, where successful attacks caused the blob to divide into smaller, weaker pieces, with new pieces gaining invulnerability and powers based on the attack that caused the division. At one point Hoenheim plopped himself into a blob, which appeared not to mind. Also, every single blob exclusively attacked K12. He’s still wondering what he ever did to the blob to deserve this.

Once the blobs were all destroyed, Tau found small green crystals that appeared to be Adamantite in the pools left by the blobs. Tau was confused, however, because there had only ever been records of living things being affected by Adamantite, and the pool of garbage was likely non-living. Tau returned the crystals to a drawer in his lab, to be investigated later.

This distraction finished, our heroes returned to Helga’s cell-room to retrieve the meat plants, which had somehow sufficiently grown in the few hours that passed. Tau gave Helga the remainder of her “payment”, and our heroes were off to the Califarian Wetlands.

The Protectors presented the meat plants to Spike, who sampled one of their meat sacks. He was quite pleased with the flavor, and urged our heroes to plant them. Our heroes complied, but made Spike agree that no more attacks were to happen on the gorillas. Spike explained that with such a tasty source of meat that didn’t need to be hunted, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Once Tau explained to Spike and some of the other crocodiles how to cultivate the meat plants, word came to Spike that Xal’Thuran would soon arrive. Spike was excited, and had our heroes stand in a line to welcome Xal (though Witch stayed off in a corner, cloaked). Soon a large humanoid crocodile approached the group. It locked eyes with K12, and approached him, morphing into a tall human form as he did so. “It’s so nice to see you, brother!” Xal’Thuran proclaimed, embracing our confused hero.

So is Xal’Thuran an Allauron? And what’s up with his shape-shifting, is that an Allauron power? Why can’t K12 shape-shift? And while we’re asking about K12, why did that goo hate him so much? And what’s up with Adamantite making a goo monster out of a pile of chemically-treated garbage? Will Xal’Thuran be able to tell our heroes anything useful? Will the number of questions at the end of these synopses continue to grow? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

It was an average day in Emerald City. K12 was out getting a smoothie with Hoenheim and Doctor Tau, and Witch was tending her shop. All of a sudden they heard Mukla in their heads, calling for their help. He sounded far off, like he was straining to communicate at a distance. He asked them to come meet him in his new homeland, the Califarian Forest, to talk about the problem.

Our heroes decided to drive, with Doctor Tau in the driver’s seat. However, Tau failed quite horribly at operating a vehicle on the ill-maintained roads, nearly scrapping the Mystery Machine. Witch took lead of the vehicle, bringing our heroes safely to Mukla’s homeland.

Our heroes approached Mukla’s giant stone throne. They could tell Mukla’s influence permeated his gorilla tribe. Mukla explained that his tribe gathers food from the Barillo trees in the Califarian Wetlands to the west. But recently, a group of crocodiles had moved in to the area, and were attacking their expedition teams. The crocodiles were led by a large, humanoid crocodile with large spikes on its back (a feature not seen in the Croc in Emerald City). Mukla asked the Protectors to drive the crocodiles out of the Wetlands so they could gather food in peace.

Our heroes questioned Mukla about why he didn’t just drive the crocodiles away himself. Mukla explained that this would be a last resort, due to the fact that he really dislikes water. Calling the Protectors was a second-to-last resort. Our heroes sighed and agreed to see what they could do.

The Protectors created a taser-like device using spare parts from the Dream Machine before venturing into the Wetlands. They kept themselves within the branches of the Barillo trees. The webbing pattern of the branches formed almost a second ground level above the marsh. Eventually our heroes noticed two crocodiles in the marsh below. One came up to the tree in which the Protectors sat, trying to climb and snap up at them, while the other sat patiently at the roots of another tree. Hoenheim taunted the climbing crocodile, with more inappropriate plans in mind, while Witch communicated with the patient crocodile using her powers of animal empathy. It was clear the patient crocodile was much more intelligent than a normal crocodile.

The patient crocodile explained to Witch that their group of crocodiles recently moved into the area, but that they are very hungry and looking for food. When Witch relayed this to Doctor Tau, he tried teleporting a barillo over to the patient crocodile. The crocodile was extremely surprised to see the barillo appear out of nowhere, but was entirely uninterested in eating it. Witch asked the patient crocodile to take them to its leader. The patient crocodile agreed, grabbing the attention of its comrade and swimming off for our heroes to follow.

Eventually they came to an area with a larger number of crocodiles. They approached a large web of barillo tree roots, upon which a large humanoid crocodile with spikes coming out of his back stood. He was hence referred to as Spike. Spike asked what brought our heroes here, in a husky voice not unlike the Croc. They explained that they were sent by the gorillas to the east, and questioned why the crocodiles were attacking them.

Spike explained that it was the will of Xal’Thuran that they should inhabit this region. He described to our heroes how Xal’Thuran bestowed them with great powers, and told them to inhabit this region. Spike was surprised that our heroes did not know of “the greatness of Xal’Thuran”, and was reluctant to tell them anything further about him before they could show they are trustworthy.

Spike described how when they arrived, food was relatively sparse in the Wetlands. The most satisfying source of food they could find was the gorillas who often venture into the Wetlands. If they could not hunt the gorillas, they would not be able to survive.

Spike also explained how his brother had gone with some crocodiles to the north, to Emerald City, to find more area in which to live. However, they were driven out, which placed more strain on their already low food supply in the Wetlands. Spike said his brother would be returning from an expedition to find new lands “soon”, but avoided the question of exactly when the Croc would return.

Our heroes asked Spike whether the crocodiles would be willing to make peace with the gorillas if they could provide a new source of food. Or maybe they forgot to ask, the GM is not quite sure. In any case, our heroes got the impression that if they could provide an alternate source of food for the crocodiles, they would gladly not hunt the gorillas anymore.

Doctor Tau remembered hearing about plants that grow meat being developed at TAISAR. With some reluctance, our heroes decided to ask Helga Jackson about it, and visited her at her cell.

When our heroes entered, Helga asked how her Jo-Jo was doing. She wasn’t surprised to hear that he doesn’t like water. When the conversation moved to meat plants, Helga explained that she knew a lot about this project, as she was the head of it. It was eventually scrapped when marketing studies found that people would have a problem with eating meat that grew on plants. She agreed to walk Doctor Tau through the process of developing these plants, on the condition that she be given a lock of Mukla’s hair.

Our heroes deliberated for some time over whether Helga could be trusted, whether this would help her escape, and whether she’d clone Mukla or something. But eventually they decided this was their best chance at peace between the gorillas and the crocodiles. They ventured back to Mukla to ask for some of his hair. Our heroes wisely explained the full situation to Mukla, instead of using their meager deception skills, and Mukla reluctantly agreed to provide some of his hair.

The Protectors returned to Helga Jackson. Doctor Tau was able to haggle her down to receiving half of the Mukla hair now, and half later. With that, Doctor Tau went to work.

Will Helga Jackson use this plan as an opportunity to escape? Will she make a clone of Mukla? Will the crocodiles actually like the meat plants, or will the allure of fresh gorilla meat be too much for them? And who the hell is Xal’Thuran? Remember to tune in next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Baby don't burn me

In the confusion of the tunnel flood in our last episode, the Croc was able to get away. K12 and Hoenheim went off down the sewers in the direction they thought the Croc might have went, and found an opening broken in the sewer bars leading to the ocean. The amphibious Croc had escaped.

Our heroes returned to Alexis and informed her of the dangers that dwelled in the sewers. They presented her with the evidence that had been gathered (sewer worker’s torn clothes, and Witch’s postcognitive visions). Outside town hall was Fred, running around in circles, waving his arms, and screeching. It seemed that nothing could be done to communicate with him, but Witch ran around in circles behind him, also waving her arms and screeching, before everyone headed into the City Hall. Our heroes warned Alexis that as they’d naught been able to dissolve the threat, safety measures ought to be taken by the Sanitation Department and co. Thus ended the tale of the killer Croc… for now.

With the Croc gone, our heroes decided to follow the lead they had been given about the disappearance of a miner at Blackrock Mountain. They decided to go by vehicle, taking the Mystery Machine. Along the way Hoenheim put on the song “What is Love”, but he never turned it off and kept it on loop. The rest of the group was forced to listen to it the entire way (but admittedly, they seemed to enjoy it).

Up at the Blackrock Mining Facility, Hoenheim and Dr Tau stayed in the van listening to “What is Love” while K12 and Witch went in to speak to Foreman Fred about the problem. However they had been lied to, Foreman Fred was no Foreman at all, he was in fact the Director of Operations at the Blackrock Facility. He had once been a Foreman and so the name had stuck. Foreman Fred explained (sniffling all the way) that Miner Mike had gone missing while looking for new mineral deposits. It turned out Miner Mike as not a miner at all, but a spelunker.

The group, along with Foreman Fred, went over to gather any information they could at Miner Mike’s quarters. Hoenheim took some of Mike’s clothes to track his scent. One of our heroes found a rock sample that Foreman Fred was able to use to narrow down where Miner Mike could have gone.

The group went into the mining tunnels all the way to the point where Foreman Fred said Miner Mike had probably gone. Hoenheim was able to pick up the scent and the four descended deeper into the tunnels far past where any mining activity had taken place.

They eventually came upon a steeply descending tunnel, steep enough that it required cautious climbing in order to navigate. At the bottom of this tunnel they felt a sharp increase in temperature as if they were nearing the actively molten part of the active volcano. K12 was able to manipulate the temperature around them to keep it cool enough and avoid any damage.

As they followed the spelunker’s trail they eventually came to a large cavern with a pool of lava at its center. Miner Mike’s trail led towards the pool before abruptly ending in the cavern. Our heroes looked around for anything that might explain Miner Mike’s disappearance, noticing a strange group of rocks at the center of the lava pool. From the distance, Doctor Tau thought this might be the rock that they found in Miner Mike’s quarters!

Doctor Tau opened a portal to the rock, and quickly realized that this was no rock at all, but scales! Unexpectedly, the long neck of a dragon-like beast emerged from the scalding lava, screeching in dismay at our heroes. It apparently did not like the cold touch of K12’s powers through Tau’s portal, which was quickly closed. Witch was able to use her animal empathy to apologize to the beast, which did not immediately eat them. In this time, they were able to escape the mountain through Tau’s portals.

Having presumably discovered what had killed Mike, they went back and informed Foreman Fred who seemed intent on destroying the creature using cold. Apparently Foreman Fred couldn’t understand that the Dragon hated cold in a “I’m angry and will kill you” kind of way and not a “oh no I’m melting! bleh! dead” kind of way. K12 was able to intimidate Foreman Fred away from doing this incredibly stupid thing. For now.

After their business was wrapped up the group returned to their vehicle only to discover that numerous miners and moose were hovering around listening to “What is Love” as Hoenheim had left the car open and turned on before he left. Shooing the crowd away, the Protectors reacquired their vehicle and drove back to Town Hall where they informed Alexis of the situation at Blackrock. This time they listened to a different song along the road.

What will happen next? Will Foreman Fred do something stupid, despite K12’s intimidation? Where did the Croc go anyways? Did we ever even talk to Mukla about how his powers didn’t work on K12? Where are all these super powered animals coming from? Is there Adamantite in Blackrock Mountain? Find out the answers to these questions, or maybe some different ones, next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Our heroes were asked to investigate the recent disappearance of an on-duty sewer worker. While exploring the route the worker was thought to have taken, they found scratch marks which Hoenheim and Doctor Tau concluded were likely from a large humanoid crocodile that had been sighted in the sewers in the past.

Our heroes called in Randy, who backed up this story, explaining that crocodiles had been occupying the flooded sewer areas underneath The Docks over the past month, led by The Croc.

Our heroes went to explore this flooded area, with Hoenheim taking the lead as bait. Eventually he ran into two crocodiles, quickly crushing one as the other fled. The rest of our heroes caught up, soon to be ambushed by The Croc with two more crocodile followers. The walkway was destroyed, sending our heroes into the water below.

However, K12 quickly neutralized the Croc’s followers by freezing the sewer water. Realizing he was outmatched, The Croc began to flee, digging through the sewer floor and off to one side. Our heroes followed him, able to keep pace, when The Croc broke through into another sewer channel, flooding the tunnel! What a setback!

What will happen to our heroes now? Will they be able to catch up to the Croc? Why is the Croc here? And what’s up with him? Is he human, or a crocodile? To answer these questions and more, stay tuned to Protectors of Emerald City!

In return for Shadow’s help in Taking out the Trash, our heroes agreed to help Shadow in capturing Electro, a mysterious being who exists within electrical impulses. Shadow explained to our heroes how Electro was responsible for a string of deaths related to Truebuilt Construction.

There was the issue that Shadow wanted Electro captured alive. Shadow predicted Electro would take control of a new robot called CASA, which would be unveiled by Truebuilt Construction, and use it to wreak havoc. This robot would be disconnected from the electrical grid, allowing our heroes to incapacitate it and take its core back to Shadow. The wrong move could be disastrous, however, since the torso of the robot contained a nuclear fission reactor to power it.

Our heroes called Truebuilt Construction to try to gain intel on CASA’s specs. Through a series of passed persuasion checks, our heroes were put in touch with a fairly ridiculous engineer who told them about all the crazy deadly contraptions equipped on CASA, including homing missiles, drills, jet propulsion, and a gigantic nail gun.

The day of the unveiling, our heroes gathered around the construction site where CASA was displayed. Unfortunately, Hoenheim got distracted by the video game console he recently borrowed from Doctor Tau, and so was not present.

There was a long and arduous battle. Doctor Tau kept on attention procuring portals to prevent the propulsion projectiles of CASA from pulverizing our super-powered Protectors. Witch used her necrotic powers to slowly rust and destroy CASA’s casing. K12 narrowly avoided many long nails that were projected at him and landed many a hit on CASA, but I don’t remember them doing much.

It seemed the battle was going nowhere – CASA’s defenses were formidable, as was Doctor Tau’s ability to prevent CASA’s projectiles from damaging his comrades. Around then, Hoenheim apparently remembered he had something important to do, and lept in from the sky, landing in a gigantic crater. Shortly after, our heroes took down the giant robot (Witch was still doing most of the heavy lifting), with the final blow dealt by K12 (I guess his hits did do something).

With CASA defeated, it was time to confront Electro, the one in control of the robot. Electro led our heroes to believe that it was created by Shadow, and enslaved to do her bidding, but Electro’s story didn’t add up. They soon found Electro was just stalling for time as it broke through the nuclear fission systems, and set the core to meltdown. However, Doctor Tau was able to combine his nuclear know-how with K12’s cooling capabilities to prevent the meltdown from taking place. With Electro fully neutralized, our heroes brought the CASA casing to Shadow.

With the stories Electro had been telling, Shadow had some explaining to do. She explained that Electro was her brother, who was seeking vengeance for the death of their father. He had gone behind her back to turn himself into the form he is now using untested technology she had created. She wanted to capture Electro alive so she can return her brother to his original form – his body slipped into a coma when his consciousness left it.

Witch, Hoenheim and K12 went home while Doctor Tau stuck around to assist Shadow with some electrical work that would be necessary to neutralize the fission reactor inside CASA. As they worked, Shadow made her admiration for Tau known (nudge nudge, wink wink), and so a relationship began.

What’s in store for our heroes now? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Pics or it didn't happen

The outpost was north of Emerald City, about an hour’s flight away from where Doctor Tau found K12 in We Allauroned Alot Today. Our heroes took the car as far as they could so as not to attract attention, then ventured by flight and platform-jumping to the outpost. As far as they could tell, it was just a normal weather station, equipped with meteorological instrumentation and radar. Doctor Tau noted, however, that the radar was equipped with targeting technology that could be used to monitor and identify aircraft. Fishy.

On the way back to Emerald City, Hoenheim noticed a rolled cigarette butt next to a smoldering fire which caught his eye. It was rolled in the same way as his father used to do. On closer inspection, the fire was also stacked in the way his father used to, and there were footprints around the campsite that matched his father’s foot size, more or less. Hoenheim showed the rest of our heroes a photo of his father smoking one of his rolled cigarettes for comparison. Upon seeing this photo, K12 realized that he had seen this man before, on an Allauron ship! Gasp! This man is really becoming important enough that we should have a name for him.

Witch tried to use her postcognition to determine whether Hoenheim’s father was here, but to no avail. Our heroes tracked the footprints to an open meadow, where they vanished. Nearby, Doctor Tau found three circular imprints where grass and small plants had been crushed – likely by a spaceship! What was going on between Hoenheim’s dad and the Allaurons? We took a few moments to reflect on Hoenheim’s history, which is unfortunately still not in the wiki.

This prompted our heroes to reinvestigate the area where K12 was found by Doctor Tau, an hour’s flight away. Inside the tunnel, our heroes found the location where Doctor Tau remembered finding the door, but it was no longer there – portals into the wall found only rock. On further reflection, Tau noticed that the tunnel had changed in subtle ways. After circling the tunnel to see if they had the wrong location, Witch used her postcognition and confirmed that the area had indeed been altered by some sort of power. Fishier and fishier.

Why was Hoenheim’s dad seen by K12 with the Allaurons? And why was he back near Emerald City? What happened to the location where K12 was found? Is Hoenheim’s dad an Allauron? What is an Allauron anyways? Find out in a future epsiode of Protectors of Emerald City!

Are two Placards really better than one?

Disclaimer: Some things might have happened in different orders. This was written two weeks after the session.

Our heroes continued to discuss possibilities for investigating police collusion with the Lorenzos and figuring out who took the coke from the Butcher’s. Alexis followed up on the suspicions of our heroes that someone from waste management might be involved, and called up its director, Francine Placard, to ask about the employee schedule. Francine wasn’t sure about who worked where when, but invited our heroes to come down to the Downtown waste management offices and figure it out themselves.

Our heroes entered the plain, dreary waste management building, and found Francine’s door with a gold-plated nameplate. They ventured into her office and found it was quite lavish in comparison to the rest of the office building, with mahogany walls and intricate paperweights. Francine explained that the employee work records are kept in an office “down the hall”, and told our heroes they should be able to find it. When asked, she offered our heroes guest badges from an envelope by her door, of which there was only one. Apparently she had forgotten to refill the envelope that morning.

At some point our heroes noticed that the garbage collector uniform is the same shade of blue as the police uniforms (though the GM neglected to inform them of this until later).

When our heroes found the records office, it was locked, and Doctor Tau had to go back to get the key from Francine. Once inside the office, Witch tackled the paper records while Doctor Tau handled the electronic system. Doctor Tau identified about seven names that could have handled the route to La Flamenco Vive on days with salt deliveries, and Witch found each of their personnel files, with their home addresses.

At this point, Shadow got in touch with our heroes. It turns out that the Lorenzos had been transferring money to only two police officers, Sam Adams and Maxwell Wiggins, who are partners in the force. Shadow and our heroes suspected that these two officers were informing the Lorenzos about police activity, which meant that it would be hard to find them acting suspiciously.

Shadow also found money being transferred to a man named Weston Dogoode. Witch and Doctor Tau realized that Weston was one of the names on the list of garbage collectors! When informed of this, Shadow offered to track Weston down using the GPS on his garbage truck, and our heroes were informed of his location. “Let’s go take out the trash!” K12 proclaimed. Witch sighed.

While Witch stayed in the car, the rest of our heroes stalked the garbage truck from rooftops while it went down a downtown back alley (you know, that space in behind buildings, not a normal road). As it made one of its stops, our heroes accosted the garbage truck. After binding Weston to the ground, Hoenheim brought up walls to prevent escape and onlookers, and similarly bound the driver of the truck. Hoenheim then intimidated Weston into submission, Terminator-style, while K12 handled the driver. Hoenheim learned that Weston had recovered the coke from the butcher’s, and stored it in his locker at the waste management center in the Docks. He convinced Weston to testify against the Lorenzos, provided they would protect him. And so Weston was brought back to Doctor Tau’s installation for holding.

Our heroes decided to tuck their knowledge about Sam Adams and Maxwell Wiggins in their back pocket and go in search of their next adventure. With the Lorenzos under wraps, they would be underground anyways. For details about their flashback adventure, read That looks familiar, and remember to join us next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Someone needs to cool off

Though Mr. Nice wanted to go directly to the police station to turn himself in, our heroes insisted he come with them to see Alexis, so that he could tell her his side of the story.

In a fairly drawn out scene in Alexis’ office, our heroes argued with Chad Marston, the Police Chief about jurisdiction. Chad expressed offense that the heroes had been meddling with normal crime (the allegations that the Lorenzos were trafficking drugs), while not bringing a super-powered murderer to justice (or even confining him). He asked our heroes to leave the rest of the investigation into the Lorenzos up to the police. Hoenheim argued back that they needed to investigate the Lorenzos in order to investigate Mr. Nice, but Alexis closed the case (at least, as far as the Chad Marston knew), by agreeing that the Protectors would leave the Lorenzo investigation alone.

As Chad made his way out of the building, he passed by Mr. Nice and K12 in the hallway. Mr. Nice asked the police chief whether he was arresting the Lorenzos, and Chad gave a noncommittal answer about getting a warrant and starting an investigation. This angered Mr. Nice, who proclaimed this was not what he signed up for, and stormed out of the building. What a hot-head.

Our heroes discussed where Mr. Nice might have went and what they should do next (Hoenheim voted for letting the police deal with it). As they were talking, Chad received a phone call. Mr. Nice was attacking the police station! “Guess that’s your problem”, Hoenheim declared, developing what will likely be a campaign-long feud between himself and Chad. The rest of the team felt differently, however, and rushed off to save the police force. Hoenheim followed, taunting Chad with a moonwalk as he did so.

When they arrived at the police station, our heroes found everything was quiet. The door to the station as ajar, and the blizzard was bringing snow and ice into the building. Just as our heroes were about to venture up the steps and inside the building, Mr. Nice emerged. “It’s you!” he exclaimed, blaming our heroes for turning against him. “You will pay!” he declared, before attacking the group and initiating the first round of combat in three sessions.

Mr. Nice slowed down our heroes a couple of times, but failed to cause any important effects to take hold. Our heroes easily hit Mr. Nice, but their effects seemed to do almost nothing. Even trapping him in a sphere had no effect, as Mr. Nice moved his center of ice-control outside of the sphere. This was until Hoenheim began using his transmutation to weaken the very essence of Mr. Nice’s Fortitude, reducing his ability to resist their attacks.

Having taken considerable damage, Mr. Nice solidified and dropped to the ground, absorbing water and ice from the air around him to heal. Dr. Tau and Hoenheim saw this as an opportunity to set up a combo attack. Hoenheim created nasty balls of spiky earth, which Dr. Tau heated up with a portal to his plasma source, and flung at the now-solid Mr. Nice. Only one of their two balls hit, but it hit with such force that it destroyed Mr. Nice, who broke into a few solid chunks and began melting next to the heat of Hoenheim’s giant balls.

Our heroes went inside to thaw the police they predicted they would find. The officers were thankful for being saved. Doctor Tau asked one of the officers whether they knew of any money being transferred between the Lorenzos and the police force. The officer told Tau that she had heard of police making shady deals on the side in general, but she hadn’t heard of anything with the Lorenzos, and certainly not on a large scale. It appeared to Doctor Tau that the officer was telling the truth.

Our heroes returned to Alexis to report on what had taken place. She cautioned that if the Protectors were to delve further in investigating police corruption, they should do so discretely, without attracting attention from the police.

The Protectors gathered for a slumber party at Doctor Tau’s installation. As the rest of our heroes slept, Hoenheim looked over the security footage that had been recovered from La Flamenco Vive. When everyone woke up, they reviewed the parts Hoenheim had deemed suspicious or noteworthy. The footage did not cover the front of the building, and the only vehicle that appeared on a regular basis was the morning garbage truck. Perhaps that would be worth checking out? The cameras in the building occasionally showed salt being brought in. There were also some periods where footage was missing.

The Protectors went to R to ask Shadow whether they could find a money trail between the police and the Lorenzos. Shadow proposed that they would help, provided the Protectors help Shadow capture something for them later, alive. Shadow explained it was something “not good” that lived within electrical wires and the net, and that physical intervention would be needed to capture it. Shadow stressed that they should make every effort not to destroy the thing. Our heroes agreed (though Witch remained reluctant), and went off to explore other routes of investigation into the police.

What will our heroes find? Are the police involved in an elaborate cover-up? Are those trucks hauling more than just garbage? Will the municipal waste management offices be more helpful to our heroes than Jean Placard? Is owing Shadow a favor really a good idea? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Why not help him out?

As our heroes sat awkwardly with the chef, the light above their table burst into many glass pieces, startling everyone (Witch let out a shriek). Soon after, the front windows of the restaurant burst inwards, and pieces of ice and snow were seen going into the kitchen. Tau proclaimed to K12, “It’s time to turn up the heat”. By some series of events, our heroes discovered an ice man, holding a black-suited man up by his neck. When the ice man was asked to put the man down, he killed him.

The nice man explained that he was Stefan, and that the Lorenzos had killed his father and attempted to kill him. The ice man asked our heroes to assist him in bringing the Lorenzo family to justice for their crimes against him and his late father. To Witch’s dismay, the party agreed, and went back to the butcher’s in search of more clues. The ice man remembered seeing bags of salt while captive in some sort of pit.

At the butcher’s, our heroes found traces of cocaine near some salt bags. It appeared some bags had been removed. “It’s cocaine!” exclaimed K12, recalling his viewing of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. K12 decided to partake, reveling in the new experience. This gave him a bout of inspiration, realizing that Mr. Nice was probably held at the flamenco studio, El Flamenco Vive. Our heroes went to check it out, Witch nervously tailing along despite her better judgement.

K12, Doctor Tau, and Witch went into the studio for some flamenco lessons while Hoenheim scouted the outside of the building with Mr. Nice. Carefully destroying the security cameras around the building, Hoenheim discovered an elevator shaft near the back of the building. Using his burrowing, he tunneled into the shaft, when he was discovered by two security guards. Hoenheim nonchalantly played off his part in the destruction of the side of the building, and returned to his comrades with Mr. Nice, who had hidden out of sight.

Once together, Hoenheim, K12, Mr. Nice, and Doctor Tau teleported into the basement of the building through the elevator shaft. They happened upon a security guard, who was quickly neutralized. Mr. Nice confirmed that this was where he had been kept. Our heroes in the basement destroyed the camera which had been recording them, and removed what removable media they could find in the surveillance office nearby. Cages of roosters were found in an adjoining room, as was a shelf of salt bags filled with cocaine. Doctor Tau (I think) picked one up to bring as evidence, and took a photo of the shelving unit.

Witch was outside on the phone with Alexis, filling her in on what they had been up to in this session. Alexis was, understandably, alarmed that our heroes were assisting someone that had committed murder right in front of them. Through a telepathic link, Witch let Doctor Tau know that they had to get out of there immediately, and report to Alexis. Once out, Mr. Nice agreed to turn himself in to the police, provided the Lorenzos would be brought to justice and our heroes would weed out any corruption in the police force.

What will happen now? Will Mr. Nice make good on his word? Will we find out what happened to the relocated cocaine? And why is it so damn cold? Find out next time, on Protectors of Emerald City!

Bring your winter clothes

It was late fall, and a chill was in the air. It had been snowing lightly in Emerald City for several days, shutting down most vehicular transport. Though most councilors were working from home, City Hall took note that Stefan Martinez, a city councilor, was missing. He had been missing for about a week, starting a few days before the snow came in. With the Police mostly unable to transport throughout the city and growing worry about Stefan’s safety, the Protectors were tasked with finding him.

Alexis noted that Stefan was very morally driven. He had shut down the opening of a brothel in the past, and was recently fighting against a casino proposal by Sierra Holdings, a group for which she had no contact information. She suggested the Protectors might ask R if he had any way of getting more information on Sierra.

R told the Protectors that a hacker by the name of Shadow, who owed R a favor, might be able to help them out. Shadow agreed to help, and said that they should have more information within a day. They would contact the Protectors through R if they learned anything earlier.

With that the Protectors went to search Stefan’s residence.

The hallway of Stefan’s apartment building was chilly. As he approached Stefan’s door, K12 noticed scratches on the door’s lock – it seemed someone had broken into the apartment. Inside the apartment was even colder than the hallway, though not quite as cold as outside. Ash was found on the ground near a coffee table, where other city-related documents were found. The wine bottles in a wine stand seemed to have burst, as had the water-based heater of the apartment. A photo of Stefan with an older man, probably his father, was found. There were two bedrooms with single beds, one that seemed to belong to Stefan and another that belonged to someone who used dentures.

Looking into the past, Witch saw a number of visions. One was of a man burning some papers, on which she caught a glimpse of the word “Sierra”. Another was of a mass of ice, shaped like a man, searching the apartment. In another vision she caught a glimpse from behind of a man picking the apartment’s lock.

Since they were in Belleville, the Protectors thought they might go in search of Mukla’s Voice to ask Mukla for assistance or advice. On stepping outside, however, it was apparent that it had gotten much colder and that they would have to take fortitude checks every 10 minutes to stay in the cold, so they went back inside. R called the group with news from Shadow – apparently Sierra holdings was owned by the Lorenzo family, known in the underground for smuggling and distributing cocaine in Emerald City. Also, the police had responded to a call at the Butcher owned by Sierra holdings.

Our heroes went to the Butcher, their way warmed by K12’s presence. The area around the Butcher was sectioned off by the police, who let the Protectors through. Inside the bodies of two men, frozen in blocks of ice, were found outside of the freezer. K12 began melting the ice and snow in the Butcher, which brought complaints from the police officers and from Witch. They found the two men were dead. Inside the freezer, Doctor Tau found another body, its face in a pile of snow. Turning the body over, Doctor Tau discovered this was none other than Stefan’s father!

Witch again glimpsed into the past. She saw the two dead men open the freezer, and then get frozen by droplets of water coalescing all around them, encasing them in blocks of ice. She saw those two men dragging two bound men, one older and one younger, into the freezer. She saw the front window of the Butcher’s bursting outwards with no apparent impact. She saw a face of a man, made of ice, shattering into a fine dust.

Perhaps the man of ice that Witch saw earlier was actually Stefan, and he had done this to the two frozen men at the butcher as revenge for trying to kill him and his father. It did fit what the Protectors had seen so far. If so, he would surely be out to cause more damage to the Lorenzos.

First K12 went to ask around the apartment building about when the building got cold, to figure out whether Stefan had recently visited. He ended up having a nice conversation with an old lady who gave him cookies, and then returned to the group.

The Protectors decided to check out some of the other Sierra Holdings locations. First would be La Pierra, a restaurant chosen because the Protectors were hungry anyways. While having their meal, Doctor Tau and K12 thought they should investigate further, so they called the manager of the restaurant over. Once the manager arrived, Doctor Tau asked if they could go into the back to thank the chef for their meal. The manager told them they couldn’t come into the back for food safety reasons, but said he would get the chef to come out to them, and went off into the back. Doctor Tau didn’t really know what to do when the chef came out to receive their praise, so he lied and said it was just like the food he had eaten in Spain. The chef seemed to see through his lie, but was simply confused as to why Doctor Tau would have lied in the first place about this. Everyone sat there awkwardly.

What would save our Protectors from this awkwardness? Find out next time, on Protectors of Emerald City!

Breathing is so last season

While the rest of the Protectors were turned back by Helga Jackson over the radio, Witch pressed on to investigate Helga’s hunting hideout. It seems she was found out, however, and quickly rendered unconscious.

Meanwhile, K12 and Doctor τ returned to meet with Hoenheim at the car. They got into a long discussion of what should be their next move, when they realized that Witch had not responded for quite some time. The group ventured back into the forest along the path, and happened upon Witch lying unconscious. Two needle pricks were found on her body. Witch was eventually woken.

They went over to where they knew they could find the Voice of Mukla, and were soon in direct mental communication with Mukla himself, an ability Mukla didn’t seem to have before. After some discussion, they convinced Mukla to follow them to where Helga was hiding, and that they would help Mukla bring her down.

When they actually arrived at Helga’s hideout, Mukla was quickly controlled by Helga, using what Doctor Tau would guess was an ultrasonic-emitting necklace. Helga seemed to dematerialize into thin air, implying she had some sort of cloaking ability. A short fight ensued, where Hoenheim was entranced by Mukla’s majestic roar, and K12 took a giant gorilla fist directly to the face. The group decided to retreat, and come up with a better plan and a way to detect Helga despite her cloaking. Witch left a cell phone for Helga to talk to R.

The Protectors heard through R that Helga had threatened to steal back her equipment from TAISAR in three nights, unless they dropped it off at an undisclosed location. The Protectors were assigned by the city to protect the equipment on that night, as TAISAR would not give in to Helga’s demands. In the days leading up to this, Doctor Tau prepared an ultrasound jammer device that would render abilities using ultrasound useless. He also prepared some eyepiece devices that would show the location of heart beats detected nearby, as a way of tracking the invisible Helga Jackson. Witch prepared a ritual that would enable her to accurately detect minds in her vicinity as a way of tracking Helga.

The night of the big fight, Hoenheim used the metal in the structure of TAISAR to make a grid of bars that would shield TAISAR from entry, and waited inside Helga’s office. K12 hid behind the cars of the parking lot, Doctor Tau stood in the open and Witch flew above the building to be able to see the surrounding area.

Witch eventually saw trees shaking off to the north, and came down to the parking lot. Mukla emerged from the treeline, with a heartbeat hovering above his shoulder. Combat ensued. Doctor Tau activated the ultrasound jammer, and Mukla began attacking Helga. K12 at one point saw what we later found was an illusory Helga Jackson aiming at him. Hoenheim lept into the action. Eventually Hoenheim trapped himself and Helga inside a giant bubble of packed earth, and dug sixty feet down into the ground, packing everything in with no air so Helga could not breathe. On the surface, Witch took control of Mukla.

Once Helga passed out, Hoenheim brought her back up to the surface. Witch allowed Mukla to go into TAISAR to rescue his family while they inspected Helga. Mukla was allowed to escape with his family. If they needed to get in touch with him, the Protectors could talk with his Voice, who would maintain a psychic link with Mukla.

Doctor Tau took the mind-control necklace Helga had been wearing. Witch used her mind control power on Helga to interrogate her back at Doctor Tau’s base. They found that Helga was behind the original rat attack, and that she had developed poison darts to cause hallucinations and weaken targets. The rat experiment had been rogue, and she had stolen equipment from TAISAR. They also found her cloaking was not from any device, but rather an innate ability. Helga was turned over to the police.

And so, with the villain behind bars, what comes next for our Protectors? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Who needs food when you have Hot Pockets?

K12 returned to the rest of the party, having encountered Mukla and been intimidated into leaving to find his comrades. The party decided Mukla was probably long gone, and that they should instead send Hoenheim to bring “R” to Emerald City Hospital while the rest of the group went to City Hall to ask what they should do next.

But first, the group went to question some scientists who were waiting around outside TAISAR, having been evacuated from the partially burning building. Doctor τ seemed to be making progress in impersonating a superior officer of TAISAR when the scientist he was talking to called security over, and the group was sent away.

On their way to City Hall, Jean Placard called the heroes asking them to rush to see him.

Once outside the Mayor’s office, the Protectors heard a brusque voice inside the room. They were able to hear Thomas Arkman demand that the Mayor “recover his assets” before leaving the office. Following this, Placard instructed the heroes that they must bring back the giant gorilla dead or alive, and also locate and bring back Helga Jackson, a researcher from TAISAR who had gone missing. He would not give any details as to why they had to do this.

The group went to Alexis Goldberg to ask for more information on this mission. Alexis was not certain about why the mission was given, but alluded to Thomas Arkman having a hold over the Mayor’s office. On the subject of Helga Jackson, she told our heroes that they should talk to R, who knows Helga and had gone to TAISAR to see her.

Our heroes went over to Emerald City Hospital to speak to R. They had some difficulty in identifying him to the receptionist, but after revealing that they were Protectors they were led to see him. R recounted his experience at TAISAR. He arrived to speak to Helga, as he has from time to time. The receptionist hadn’t seen her that day, but let R check her office. Once he got to the office, he encountered a giant gorilla that looked a lot like the gorilla Helga kept in her lab. That gorilla grabbed him and went scouring the building, eventually climbing it when the Protectors saw them.

R was concerned about Helga, and thought that a giant gorilla bursting out of her lab couldn’t be a good thing. He asked the heroes to check out her apartment building and make sure that nothing bad had happened to her, and gave them the address.

Our heroes went to her apartment, located above a Blue C Sushi restaurant. Inside they found a very messy apartment, cluttered with used ramen bowls and its dining table transformed into a kind of work bench. In the bedroom, Doctor τ found a long, rectangular, empty, locked box. On the dining table/workbench, he found textbooks on mammalian physiology. K12 was heating one of the pizza pockets he found in the kitchen using the microwave when there was a knock at the door.

The two men at the door claimed to be painters, but our heroes (other than Witch, who stayed invisible) did not want to stay to meet them. K12 and Doctor Tau escaped through a portal as the men opened the unlocked door (left unlocked by our heroes) and entered the room. When they realized they were not alone, they left in a hurry in a painting company van.

In what was a very long and drawn out segment of our adventure, our heroes tailed the two men to a warehouse where they changed into civilian clothes, then separated and went to different restaurants. Between the two men, our heroes learned that they worked for a private investigation company contracted by TAISAR to look through the apartment, and that what they were doing was (in a shady way) legal. The men returned to the apartment (followed by an invisible Witch), took some photos of the apartment, and left.

By now, it was getting quite late, so our heroes returned to bed and got some sleep.

In the morning, our heroes talked to Chief Marston who had no news other than that there was some crazy person wandering around where K12 had encountered the giant gorilla claiming to be the gorilla’s Voice. At some point around this time they also got a call from R, who was updated about the events from last night. R told our heroes that the only other place he could think of was a hunting cabin north of the city.

Our heroes went to talk with the Voice, who claimed to be a speaker for " The Great Mukla " (the gorilla they had encountered yesterday, who apparently didn’t like the name of Jo-Jo granted to him by Helga). The Great Mukla asked for our heroes’ help in getting revenge on Helga for keeping and experimenting on him, as well as in rescuing the rest of his family from TAISAR. He and his family were captured from a tropical forest in the south-east region of the continent, and brought to TAISAR for experimentation. Mukla said he could feel the rest of his family inside TAISAR.

Our heroes said they’d get back to Mukla on that (they were told they could find him by the Voice, who would be at a forested area nearby) and went in search of Helga at her hunting cabin. They drove near the cabin, until they had to get out of the car for more forested path. On their way they heard a crying baby, and went to investigate. When they got close to the source of the sound, a pit opened that only K12 “fell” for and a voice came on over a hidden radio receiver. “Leave this place” it demanded.

The female voice on the radio refused to identify herself. It continued to demand that they leave. They told the speaker that they needed to make sure that Helga was alright, and she told them that she was fine, and to leave. K12 and Doctor Tau returned to the car, while Witch cloaked herself and continued on to the cabin.

What will Witch find at the cabin? Will Mukla get even more powerful? What is Helga doing anyways? Do our heroes care, or will they leave her to her own devices? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Always trust anonymous phone tips

In this episode of Protectors of Emerald City, we took a step back three months into the past to revisit the discovery of K12.

Doctor τ was in his lab when he received a strange call about sightings of Adamantite in a cavern northeast of Emerald City. He was suspicious of the caller, but intrigued enough to explore the report.

He arrived at the cave entrance, and equipped with his trusty portal blastheadlamp flashlight to light the way, he headed into the depths of the cave. After some time he reached a fork, when a green glimmer along the left path caught his eye. He approached its location to investigate, but found nothing. Just then he spotted another glimmer further down the cave. More suspicious this time, he immediately explored that area through a peep-hole with his flashlight, and again found nothing. Nonetheless, he went over to its source and investigated the area more thoroughly.

In this spot, he found an unnatural crack in the rock wall, which seemed to be a secret doorway. Doctor Tau grabbed a rock nearby and made a feeble attempt to pry the door open.

Meanwhile, K12 stood in a cell made of steel bars with a strange force-field that prevented his powers from penetrating them. He had lived like this for as long as he could remember, always in a cell. This cell sat in a larger room with a number of controls on one of its walls. Hearing a strange sound of rocks grinding through the door of the room, K12 asked who was there?

Doctor Tau heard this strange sound from through the wall, and discerning that it was probably language, made a peep hole to see inside. Shining his flashlight through and “yelling stuff” like “hey”, “who’s in there?” and whatnot, K12 responded asking Doctor Tau to let him out.

After some time the two decided they could trust each other, to some degree, though Doctor Tau thought it might not be a coincidence that the call this morning led him to this captive, and K12 was still mistrustful of Tau’s powers (though convinced he could take Doctor Tau on if he had to). K12 discerned that Tau was human, and Tau found out that K12 is an Allauron (whatever that means). K12 does not know much of anything about the Allaurons, who never answered his questions. Doctor Tau experimented with the force field of K12’s cell – when he moved a pebble towards it, his gravity glove lost grip of the pebble which fell to the ground inside the cell. Eventually Doctor Tau pulled down a conspicuous red lever, which shut off the force field.

Of course, K12 was still inside a steel cage. As the two of them pondered what to do, the lights went out. Doctor Tau turned on his flashlight once more. K12 did not want to go through Tau’s portal, instead choosing to break a hole in his steel cage using his newly-freed ability to clash rock against the edge of his cell. Having broken this hole, the room began to shake, and pieces of rock began falling from the ceiling. Not wanting to spend time trying to bust open the door that Doctor Tau had feebly tried to open earlier, K12 began tunneling through one of the side walls as Doctor Tau followed, with the tunnel collapsing in behind them.

After a short distance, the shaking stopped. Not having any idea where he was, K12 waited for Doctor Tau to give him some direction. Eventually the two tunneled up and out of the mountain they were underneath, coming out to a majestic view of the surrounding valley. Exhausted after all the tunneling, K12 sat down for a minute to catch his breath. But K12 was also exhilarated, free to use his powers for the first time ever! He wasn’t even sure he had used all of his powers in the past. He began flying, breathing fire, whirling air, pulling water out of clouds. K12 was very curious about Doctor Tau’s adamantite-powered devices, and Tau showed him the devices in detail. K12 explained that he had seen this crystal often in the past, and wanted to know more about it.

The two decided to return to Tau’s base as K12 was getting tired. They flew to the outskirts of town, and then landed so as to avoid attracting attention to themselves. The idea of being seen by the hundreds of thousands of people in Emerald City intimidated K12, who had seen fewer than a hundred beings in all of his memory. They called Monsieur Placard to arrange a car to pick them up, but Placard was too busy having a nap so they called Alexis instead who arranged for them to be brought to Doctor Tau’s lab.

While waiting for the car, the two heroes visited a smoothie shop and bought a banana smoothie for K12. Having only eaten nourishing paste before, K12 was overwhelmed and pleased by the flavor.

Once at the lab, Tau and K12 discussed their plans for the future. K12 was interested in learning more about adamantite and staying with Doctor Tau, and was willing to work with the Protectors as compensation. Wanting to know more about K12 and his origins, Doctor Tau was happy to accept this arrangement. K12 might make a good lab assistant. Alexis agreed that this seemed like a good arrangement, though she was somewhat surprised at how quickly things were moving between K12 and Doctor Tau. After all, they had only met a few hours ago and they were already living together. But the Doctor knows best!

Where did this gorilla even come from?

Having devised a ritual to locate the radio frequencies being emitted from the rat-embedded devices, Witch led our heroes back to the Downtown area in search of vermin. Joining the group was K12, while Doctor τ stayed behind in his lab to do more research on the recovered rat samples.

The group caught on to one signal, which seemed to be located below ground at Emerald Books. Upon entering the bookstore, Witch gleefully ran off in search of occult tomes. K12 was too shy to ask anyone anything, but Hoenheim got out of Witch that the signal was coming from “three or four floors down”. He got into a conversation with Charles Lavalle who works at the store about rats, finding that Charles is not too fond of rodents. Charles led Hoenheim to the section of the store on animals, and handed him a text on rats. Learning that Hoenheim was one of the Protectors of Emerald City, he gave Hoenheim the text free of charge. Hoenheim also learned that Emerald Books does not have a basement, due to the extensive sewer network found below its floors.

Meanwhile, Witch located a dusty old tome titled “A History of Pagan Rituals”. This prompted a half hour discussion between Witch and Charles about the book and the occult, from which there was no prying Witch away. In the meanwhile K12 went and bought and consumed a very pleasant and scentful banana smoothie. Having satisfied her obsession, Witch rejoined Hoenheim and K12, and the group went off in search of a way into the sewers below.

Before entering the sewers, Witch received a phone call from “R”, who put off talking about Friday plans until later. “R” updated the group that he was planning to visit a contact of his at TAISAR, and that City Hall was considering formally asking TAISAR about the devices found in the rats. Witch also updated “R” about their discovery of a signal below Emerald Books. “R” would contact our heroes again once he had more information.

Carefully avoiding traffic, the trio entered the sewers by a nearby manhole. K12 had refused to take infrared goggles from the lab-coat clad “R”, but was able to pull off a light source using his control of fire. Using this, the group headed in the direction of the radio signal’s source.

Eventually the Protectors heard scrambling and sniffing around a nearby corner, which stopped as they approached. “WHOGOESTHERE??” prompted the Rat Man, who revealed he detests the name and prefers to be called “Randy”. Rounding the corner, Hoenheim discovered Randy was perched upon the corpse of a very giant rat (large enough that Randy could clamber across its body). “Stay back!” Randy demanded. Hoenheim was very diplomatic and did not approach Randy, who continued with cries of “This is MY kill!”. Randy also seemed somewhat disgusted by K12’s banana scent, and claimed he could smell K12 and Witch from around the corner when Hoenheim revealed their presence.

The group decided to leave the giant rat’s body to Randy, but asked that he determine whether there was a transmitter inside the dead rat’s corpse. Randy reluctantly agreed, on the condition that it would mean our heroes went away and left him alone. As Randy cut through the flesh of the dead rat, the radio signal cut out. Randy claimed there was some kind of metal box inside the head of the rat, and asked if that was sufficient. Satisfied, our heroes bid Randy farewell and exited the sewers the way they came.

After exiting the sewers, the group decided Witch should fly around the city in search of more signals, while K12 and Hoenheim went off to a smoothie shop so K12 could get some more tasty banana flavor.

During this time, K12 received a call from the Mayor, and promptly handed the phone off to Hoenheim who answered the call. Monsieur Placard demanded the heroes come to City Hall immediately to discuss an urgent situation, and refused to talk about it on the phone. Asking why they should do it, Hoenheim got out of Placard that they would have his undying gratitude and continued stipends from City Hall. He and K12 went off towards City Hall.

While on their way, they received a call from Witch who was finishing off her radio search, not having found any other signals. They updated her on the situation and all met in front of City Hall. Frank was not outside.

After entering the Mayor’s office, Placard exasperatedly revealed that there was a giant gorilla that had climbed TAISAR and had taken “R” hostage! Hoenheim scolded Placard for not just telling them that on the phone, leading Placard to mumble something about phone security and “maybe we should get a secure line”. The trio ran out of City Hall to go to R’s rescue, when they realized they had no idea where TAISAR is. They called Placard, who gave them the very helpful information that it’s at TAISAR. They then called Alexis Goldberg who gave them the address and directions.

Hopping into a vehicle and driving at the dare devil speed of 10 km/h above the speed limit, the group made their way towards the TAISAR tower. From a fair distance away they could see a black, majestic, 15-foot-tall gorilla atop the tower with a trail of broken windows below it and a humanoid figure in one of its large hands. Stopping at the foot of the building, K12 and Witch flew up to the creature while Hoenheim raised himself up on a pillar of rock from the ground. The gorilla roared, demanding our heroes bow down before it and accept it as their master, but they refused to be taken over by him. “R” appeared to be under the gorilla’s spell, commenting to Witch about how soft the gorilla’s hand was.

After a series of combat rounds, with roaring and freezing and trapping and escaping, the gorilla leaped off the tower and ran away, tossing “R” into a nearby lake. Witch plummeted into the lake to recover “R” and made a valiant (but failed) attempt to swim. Hoenheim made a bridge of ice out to where “R” and Witch were submersed, while K12 produced currents in the water that rose them to the surface. Once back at the shore, K12 went off in pursuit of the gorilla leaving Hoenheim and Witch to check on “R”. They realized that “R” wasn’t breathing.

Hoenheim tried to evaporate the water in R’s lungs, nearly evaporating R’s blood instead. Taking his time, Hoenheim was eventually successful in removing the water from R’s lungs and airway.

Meanwhile, K12 found it very difficult to damage the gorilla, searing its fur only a few times in eight rounds of combat. The gorilla equally found it difficult to intimidate or subdue K12 with his iron will (and it helped that K12 stayed out of reach with his flight). The two eventually reached a residential area, where the gorilla brought some citizens to his side, who began throwing small rocks feebly in K12’s direction and yelling obscenities at him. K12 coated the ground with ice to slow the gorilla’s escape, leading many citizens to fall over. Aided by citizens’ tiny cries, the gorilla finally intimidated K12 badly enough and with the right sense of purpose to send him back to get Hoenheim and Witch as reinforcements.

What will happen now? Will K12 get Hoenheim and Witch in time to catch onto the gorilla’s trail? Will the gorilla get revenge on his banana-scented foe? Does “R” have anything to say about the situation? And as one player put it, “Where did this gorilla even come from”? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!

Here, have some debuff

Reports had been made of strange rat attacks around Emerald City, with the last known sighting being an alleyway in Downtown Emerald City. Our heroes, equipped with infrared goggles and a sewer map provided by “R”, ventured to this location to investigate.

At the scene they found traces of blood, with animal hair trailing between the blood and a nearby sewer drain. This prompted our heroes to explore the sewers. After entering a nearby manhole and finding the location of the drain, Hoenheim used the tracking abilities he gained in the wilderness to follow the trail of whatever had left this hair (probably rats, of course). He was aided by a light source prepared on the spot by Witch.

After losing the trail and hearing some unusual splattering sounds from down the sewer tunnel, the heroes paused to gather their bearings, when they were pounced upon from above by a swarm of mutant rats! Little claws and teeth were everywhere, dazing the Protectors. Two large mutant rats came to the aid of the swarm, biting and clawing at our heroes (Hoenheim barely noticed). One of them got a really good gnaw in at Doctor Tau, sending him into a stunned trance that Hoenheim couldn’t snap him out of! But Witch and Hoenheim came to his rescue, staggering and paralyzing the swarm, and completely shattering the legs of one of the large rats. Doctor tau shook off his confusion, and with a radiation blast portal completely charred the rat swarm.

The one remaining large rat ran away down the sewer tunnel, but our heroes were merciless in the quest they had been set upon, to eliminate this threat to Emerald City. But this rat was cunning. Witch sought to enslave it with her arcane magic, but it dodged, and lept, and avoided every attack she threw at it. Hoenheim tried to thwomp it into the ground with large pillars of stone, but again it dashed and avoided his traps. Doctor Tau, having shaken off his confused state, opened portals to the power source in his lab, finally injuring the beast and slowing it to a crawl! This allowed Hoenheim to trap it within bars of stone. The heroes caged this rat as well, gathered tiny charred rat corpses, and reported back to “R”.

“R” began investigating the corpses and living large rats while Doctor Tau and Hoenheim went to Doctor Tau’s secret base to perform their own investigation. Witch left to tend to her shop, but stayed in contact through cellular communication. While at her shop, Frank came by looking for rat tails. Doctor Tau’s dissection of the charred rat remains showed a transmission device embedded in the rat’s body, while Hoenheim noted the muscular structure of the rat was far too developed for the rat’s skeleton. The sophistication of the transmission device being embedded in this rat’s body suggested a highly skilled biomechanic had been at work. The most likely location in the area to find such a scientist would be TAISAR. When Witch asked Frank about this organization, Frank went on a long rant about how everyone at TAISAR is crazy. “R” also confirmed from his own analysis that the transmission technology itself was very similar to devices used by TAISAR, though he had never seen them embedded in a living creature in such a way.

Doctor Tau and Hoenheim called in Witch for assistance, and she prepared and performed a ritual to identify that the transmission device was working on radio frequency. She has the ability to use this ritual to locate nearby radio transmission devices, for a short time. What will the Protectors do now? Find out next time on Protectors of Emerald City!